University of Calgary PRISM: University of Calgary's Digital Repository University of Calgary Press University of Calgary Press Open Access Books 2006 Canadian Television Today Beaty, Bart; Sullivan, Rebecca University of Calgary Press Beaty, B. & Sullivan, R. "Canadian Television Today". Series: Op/Position: Issues and Ideas series, No. 1. University of Calgary Press, Calgary, Alberta, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/1880/49311 book http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives 3.0 Unported Downloaded from PRISM: https://prism.ucalgary.ca University of Calgary Press www.uofcpress.com CANADIAN TELEVISION TODAY by Bart Beaty and Rebecca Sullivan ISBN 978-1-55238-674-3 THIS BOOK IS AN OPEN ACCESS E-BOOK. It is an electronic version of a book that can be purchased in physical form through any bookseller or on-line retailer, or from our distributors. 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Acknowledgement: We acknowledge the wording around open access used by Australian publisher, re.press, and thank them for giving us permission to adapt their wording to our policy http://www.re-press.org/content/view/17/33/ CHAPTER TWO: PROGRAMMING 6 7 CHAPTER TWO: PROGRAMMING short article in the April 3, 2004, issue of TV Guide by Ben Mulroney encapsulates the current state of Canadian television programming. Mulroney, the son of the former prime minister and host of CTV’s celebrity infotainment show eTalk Daily, describes his successes as an interviewer on the red carpet at the AAcademy Awards, which was broadcast by ABC and carried live in Canada by CTV. Mulroney writes: “Sandwiched between Joan Rivers and Roger Ebert, CTV’s position on the carpet was better than ever. We took advantage of the backlog of stars waiting to talk with the big American outlets, and gave Canadians what I thought was a truly star-packed hour” (Mulroney 2004). The image of the Canadian broad- caster gratefully picking up the scraps from American networks says much about how success is defined for Canadian television. Mulroney ends with an anecdote intended to display Canadian moxie in the face of such obvious domination by American broadcasters. Apparently due to the Herculean efforts of his team, they managed to secure an exclusive interview with Renée Zellweger. “If you’re wondering how that situation came to pass,” says Mulroney, “here it is: we begged. My talented and dedicated producer got down on her knees and begged Renée not to turn her back on Canada” (Mulroney 2004). This is a simi- larly apt image, Canadian television as a beggar on the global stage, prostrate at the feet of American celebrity culture. If Mulroney’s fond reminiscences make Canadian television ap- pear somewhat desperate, this is likely because it is o�en difficult to 6 8 BEATY AND SULLIVAN find bright spots on the English-Canadian television landscape. While it is worth looking in greater depth at contemporary shows that have earned a certain measure of success, such as CTV’s Corner Gas and Canadian Idol, CBC’s The Greatest Canadian, and the long-running Degrassi franchise, the fact remains that few Canadian dramatic or entertainment shows are watched in large numbers, and American programs dominate the ratings. In the spring of 2006, for example, the most popular entertainment programs on Canadian television were all American: CSI, American Idol, CSI: Miami, Survivor, Desperate Housewives, Grey’s Anatomy, The Amazing Race, House, and Criminal Minds. Corner Gas, placing thirteenth on the list, was the only Canadian entertainment show in the top twenty. And while many point to the success of Canadian Idol as evidence that Canadians will watch their own, its success came during the late summer months, not during the regular season against the full-range of American competi- tion. The ratings for popular television shows in Canada demonstrate not only that there is little difference between this country and the United States, but also that Canadians have few programming options other than major American network fare and smaller-scale Canadian productions. The usual arguments for or against Canadian programs are o�en used to foster a division between what is deemed good for Canadians and what Canadians actually like. This is, of course, tied to television’s historic reputation as a mass medium that is devoid of any edifying qualities. Thus, more than anything else, the anxiety over Canadian programming is deeply tied to notions of television as an inherently lowbrow medium that could, if suitably linked with good national values, be legitimated in terms of its service to the state, rather than through its aesthetic content. This is evident in the way that the in- dustry has been regulated and monitored by successive governments since the earliest days of broadcasting. Further, it is one of the reasons why many studies on Canadian television focus more on the broad- casting system itself than on how that system is used, experienced, and valued by viewers on an everyday basis. When actual television programs do become the subject of debate, it is o�en in the form of a culturally nationalist outcry over the propensity of Canadians to CHAPTER TWO: PROGRAMMING 6 9 watch American shows not only as a threat to sovereignty but also as a sign of plain poor taste. As Tracey and Redal argue, the viewing pat- terns of Canadians undermine the traditional rhetoric of our cultural distinction not just by demonstrating what we as a nation are not, but more troublingly, by clearly pointing out what we are: a nation that watches America’s Funniest Home Videos in even greater proportional numbers than Americans (1995, 306). Attempts to rescue television from the American clutches through various political interventions ranging from quotas to programming funds are not necessarily ille- gitimate or a waste of taxpayers’ money. They are, however, a rather ineffectual mask for the actual, unarticulated problem that has been present from the earliest days of television, which is the fear that it is a debased, populist medium beyond saving. It should be stated here that the conception of Canada as merely a satellite of the American television marketplace is not entirely ac- curate. For one thing, Canada has many channels producing Canadian content that are simply not available in the United States. From this perspective, one could argue that Canada is the American broadcast- ing regime with a number of additional channels, or AmericaPlus. At the same time, however, a large number of American channels are denied to Canadians by the CRTC, ranging from MTV to The Disney Channel. Insofar as these channels are desirable to some Canadian viewers, Canadian broadcasting is experienced as AmericaMinus. To remain at this level of discussion, however, is to miss a broader point: Canada continues to define its television in direct reference to one other national market, the United States, rather than in terms of a far more expansive global culture. Even though Canada is the second largest exporter of television programs, very few Canadian stations provide the same kind of access to programming from other foreign markets (Tinic 2005, 159). Furthermore, what is available is usually on specialty “ethnic” or foreign-language services that are managed in such a way as to ensure very little cross-over audience except from those communities they are very narrowly designed to serve. Thus, the mainstream Canadian television market is limited to a triangu- lation of UK programming, which comprises only a tiny share and is usually marketed as prestige culture, U.S.